


Adjective

by okapi



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Community: watsons_woes, Crack, Feels, Friends to Lovers, Humor, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Masturbation, Penis Size, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-12 05:28:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 3,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10483107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: Holmes corrects Watson's grammar. ACD. Crack. Humour.Note: Rating increase for Chapter 9 & 10.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the March LJ Watson's Woes comm prompt: wrong

“But that can’t be right, Holmes.”

“I assure you that it is, my dear Watson, and I am astounded that a writer with your penchant for egregiously romantic description would make such an error. You, of all people, ought to be well-versed in the order of adjectives in the English language.”

Now I don’t know if any of my gentle readers have ever been face-to-face with a face which inspires a fervent, fiery desire to cleanse it of its smug expression by the most violent means possible, but that was the circumstance in which I found myself that afternoon in the sitting room of 221B Baker Street.

Now normally in such circumstance, two or three days, sometimes a week or more, would pass before the ghost of a properly acerbic rejoinder would occur to me, and by then, of course, it would be far too late to return fire.

But for some reason, in that moment, the gods of fluid and florid expression—perhaps because of, as Holmes would argue, my unflagging discipleship of them—took pity and gifted me with a response.

“But, Holmes, that would mean you have a ghastly little old stubby hoary metropolitan wrinkles-and-sores frigging prick.”

Oh, now what is the descriptor I want?

Pole-axed.

Yes, I believe that is the word that describes Holmes’s expression best.


	2. Chapter 2

“You were wrong, Watson.”

“Oh?”

Holmes and I had spent the rest of the day in what could be described as companionable silence, if your idea of companion is one of those seemingly devoted but in fact murderous types who are always cleverly doing away with their elderly employers in novels.

“Your statement earlier about me was wrong.”

“The one about?” I made a vague gesture in the direction of Holmes’s lap.

“Yes.”

“Oh, well, I suppose it could be a ‘ _hoary_ little old etcetera, etcetera’ but you see, I was using ‘hoary’ to mean that deathbed grey pallor you sometimes see—“

“I am not referring to the order, but rather the accuracy. Your descriptors were wrong.”

“Oh, which ones?”

“All of them.”

My eyebrows rose.

“Holmes, I know my adjectives. You said so yourself.”

“Perhaps, but you do not, in fact, know the object that you are describing!”

“But I’ve an imagination, far too much according to you. My stories in _The Strand_ are fictionalised accounts of our adventures. I am quite practiced at describing things I’ve never actually seen—”

“In this case, you do so inaccurately! Insultingly so!”

“On every count?”

“Yes! I am prepared to argue—on every count—that your description is false.”

“Well, well, well, then where should we begin?” I mused. “At ‘ghastly,’ I believe.”


	3. Ghastly

“‘Ghastly,’ that is, frightful, shocking, suggestive of the kind of horror evoked by the sight of carnage or death—“

“I know what it means, Watson, what every word that you could possibly know means! But we’ll set ‘ghastly’ aside for the end of discussion.”

“You’re requesting concessions already? That’s decidedly unsporting, Holmes. Doesn’t bode well for your success, either.”

“’Ghastly’ is an opinion, is it not?”

“True, but how can a little old stubby hoary metropolitan wrinkles-and-sores frigging prick fail to be ghastly?”

“My point precisely. ‘Ghastly’ depends on the collective truth of following adjectives, the rebuttal of those will, by default, vanquished it.”

“Now see here—“

“Now _you_ see here—“

“Now what are we seeing, gentlemen?”

Lestrade was smiling, coat dripping onto the rug.

Suddenly, a flash of lightning lit the rain-spattered panes.

“Oh ho! Now what were you two discussing so heatedly that a copper like me could sneak up on you?”

“The terms of a wager,” Holmes replied quickly.

“Excellent. I can quash a bit of unlawful domestic gambling and bring a singular case to your attention, Mister Holmes.”

“Please. Watson, his coat and hat.“

“Extraordinary set of circumstances, Mister Holmes, nothing less would bring me here on an evening so ghast—“

I looked over Lestrade’s shoulder and met Holmes’s mischievous gaze.

Both of us, such naughty boys!


	4. Little

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 221b x 2

“Holmes, you were brilliant!”

“Lestrade was correct about the singularity of the affair. A tale for your readership to be sure, Watson, but to resume our debate…” He shot me a look.

I laughed. “I believe we were at an impasse about ‘ghastly,’ but I find myself willing to concede to your request to set it aside until you’ve made your whole argument.”

“How magnanimous,” he replied with smirk. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

Our glasses clinked.

“I believe you mentioned something about a wager…” I began.

“Ruminate on the terms. I shall return shortly.”

Then, in a flurry of dark silk, he rose, flew to the desk, and disappeared into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him.

“Holmes?”

Well, there was nothing for it but to continue celebrating the successful conclusion of a case. I sighed and sank further into my cups and my comfortable armchair.

A sting to my thigh startled me out a warm reverie.

My eyes fluttered open, and I caught sight of the clock on the mantelpiece. Little more than a quarter hour had passed.

“Little,” proclaimed Holmes. “I think not.”

I looked up at his face, slightly flushed, then looked down. My eyebrows rose.

A ruler—with _two_ notches carved in it—rested in my lap.

After studying the measurements, all I could think to say was,

“Bother.”

* * *

Holmes folded himself into his armchair and looked smug.

I had the sudden desire to don spectacles that I do not wear. I settled for my most doctorly tone.

“The first measurement is, I’d say, average for an adult male, but the second, uh, is greater than one would expected.”

“So ‘little’?”

I shook my head.

“Ha!” He clapped his hands together.

I looked from his triumphant face to the door of his bedroom.

“The data are fresh,” he purred. His gaze held the same schoolboy glint I’d seen earlier.

The heat rose in my cheeks and I giggled. “Holmes, you silly ol’ thing.” Then I remembered the time. “You were quite efficient.”

“Who wouldn’t be? End of a successful case. Glass of Montrachet in my veins. Lauds of my Boswell ringing in my ears.”

“I, uh, aide you?”

“In so many ways, Watson.” He took up his violin and launched into a string of jaunty ditties that he accompanied with hops and skips.

I was still smiling after we’d bid our good-nights and retired to our respective sleeping chambers. I took my own prick in hand and though of my friend, his brilliance, his music, his mischief.

His cock.

And the following morning, I slapped the ruler—with its two additional notches—on the breakfast table.

Holmes’s eyebrows rose.

“Bother.”


	5. Old

“Now, old,” said Holmes.

I cringed. It was, of all the adjectives I hurled at Holmes, the least defendable. Nevertheless, I would defend it.

“A part of the body cannot be any older than the whole, and I, having lived a mere forty-one years in this skin, cannot be considered to have entered my dotage,” said Holmes.

“You are rapidly approaching the average age for men of your class and environs, Holmes. One would expect your rapid decline towards the grave at any moment.”

“I believe, having already had one expiry, I could be said to be commencing my second youth.”

His remark was gentle, playful, and above all tentative. The eyes that lit upon mine held a question.

My answer was a smirk. Yes, enough time had passed since his resurrection that we could now speak of his death in jest.

His smile, like a hothouse flower, quickly bloomed, then, just as quickly, wilted.

“Not old,” he insisted, but I was not ready to admit defeat.

“But perhaps your initial assertion is wrong, Holmes. A part of the body might be older than the whole, that is, through over-use, ‘wear and tear.’”

“I am not torn!”

I shrugged. “Then worn? At your own hand, perhaps or others?”

“If so, then yours is positively antediluvian, my dear man,” he said bemusedly.


	6. Stubby

A fortnight passed before our debate resumed. Holmes’s successful conclusion of a case, my stroke of luck at a flutter, and the unseasonably mild weather all contributed to a convivial mood on the evening that he announced,

“The Greeks favoured a small penis.”

“What?”

“A large phallus was thought to be animalistic, base. The Romans, of course, disagreed, as did at least one scribe of the Old Testament: ‘ _For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses_.’”

“Holmes, your Scripture knowledge…”

“Yes,” he acknowledged with a sigh. “Spotty.”

“I suppose you think your measurements exclude the possibility of ‘stubby,’ but I’ve only your word as a gentleman, etcetera.”

“You’re welcome to verify if it will hasten the defeat of that cruel descriptor. A seasoned physician such as yourself will only require a palpation or two to confirm the truth.”

“I don’t know who is more ridiculous, Holmes, you for that suggestion or me—“

“Oh, definitely, you.”

He stood. I stood.

The first touch was that of a physician, but with the flaccid length quickly established, I desired nothing more to feel him harden beneath my touch.

And he did.

Oh, how he did.

Christ, he was magnificent.

“So?” he asked, his voice strained.

“Not stubby,” I breathed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holmes is quoting Ezekiel 23:20.


	7. Metropolitan

“What say you to one more disruption to the order of points of my rebuttal?”

“Very well.”

My ready agreement was not a result of like mindedness, but rather relief.

As soon as I conceded the defeat of ‘stubby’ the previous evening, Holmes had given me a courteous nod and, with a grace that few men could manage in his state of arousal, withdrawn to his bedroom. After an hour’s wait, I retired to my own chamber wondering just how badly I had damaged relations between us with my fondling.

And thus, Holmes’s first words at breakfast, uttered without a trace of embarrassment or rancor or, in truth, any negative sentiment whatsoever, were a panacea for my anxious mind.

“Sherlock Holmes is London phenomenon,” I said. “As much as the Tower or the Bridge.”

“Forget monuments, think of geese, dear Watson. A bird is not a city bird, just because it happens to be hanging in a stall of Covent Garden Market. I was born to a family of country squires in the North Riding of Yorkshire. That is where I was raised. My eldest brother Sherrinford managed our modest family estate, but when he died, neither Mycroft nor I had any interest in following suit, so it was sold. This bird,” he said, buttering his toast triumphantly, “is country bred.”


	8. Hoary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 221b x 2

“Let us return, Watson, to ‘hoary’—”

I lifted my head and spoke as if reading aloud from a dictionary. “Hoary, that is to say, grey or white, grizzled with age—“

Holmes raised a halting hand and made a noise, which to my finely-tuned ear indicated that were I to continue, I would almost certainly put him off his hot buttered toast.

For the sake of the toast, I stopped.

“I _know_ what it _means_ ,” he snapped. Then he looked over his shoulder and announced in a much more casual tone, “The barometer’s been rather mercurial of late, hasn’t it?”

I frowned. “What else is it supposed to be?!”

“Oh, _now_ you elect to be literal.” He cleared his throat. “Do you agree that for this term, and perhaps the next, a visual examination is required?”

Now, I’ll admit that getting a look at the goods, so to speak, had crossed my mind more than once in this debate, but quite frankly, in that moment, it was a bit alarming, the thought of Holmes suddenly dropping his trousers at the breakfast table and whipping out his weatherglass, if I might be as euphemistic as apparently desired, and me with nothing stronger than a cup of Assam coursing through my veins!

I shuddered.

He huffed. “Watson, let’s go to the bath.”

* * *

“Ah, barometer’s going up and down?” I teased as we walked.

“Yes, Watson.”

“Ah, the bath’s just the thing when stiffness in the ol’ joints is plaguing you, I always say.”

“Yes, Watson.”

“Relaxes the muscles, relaxes the mind. Bit of heat, bit of steam, bit of the ol’ _e_ _ffleurage_ _and_ _petrissage._ _”_

I butchered the foreign words as gruesomely as possible and was rewarded with a wince from Holmes.

"Yes, Watson," he said through clenched teeth.

As soon as we entered the establishment on Northumberland Avenue, I knew that it to be superior to the bath that had, until that moment, been my regular haunt.

I was seduced and gasped accordingly.

“ _Oh, Holmes_.”

“Yes, Watson?”

He turned. I saw his pique had finally faded.

“Yes, Holmes,” I said, answering his raised eyebrow with a wide grin.

We ended up lying side by side on a pair of couches in an isolated corner of the drying-room.

Holmes had enjoyed a pleasant smoke, and I had enjoyed a pleasant daydream when he finally rolled towards me on his side, his back to the ornate screen which shielded us from casual glance.

He parted his robe.

“Not the grey pallor of the deathbed?”

“No. Rosy,” I whispered. “Pink.”

“Hoary, then, is bested,” he reached for my hand, “whore-like, however—“

“The dirty pink prick of Baker—“


	9. Wrinkles-and-sores (Rating: Mature)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Note: a bump up in the rating here for the description of masturbation. Pretty mild by mild standards but, of course, YMMV. Also a bit of feels.

“Sores?” Holmes asked as my oil-slicked hand glided up and down his shaft.

“No.”

I knew not where or how he had obtained the oil. He’d produced it with the same quotidian magic that he used at the end of cases to conjure hansom cabs from lost, lonely eddies of the great London cesspool.

“Cat-like cleanliness,” he said.

“Apt phrase. May I quote you?”

“Out of context, if you must. Wrinkles?”

“Only the ripples I’m supplying. You stretch quite nicely.”

The latter was pure understatement. He was glorious.

I held his gaze far more gently than I held his prick.

Wrinkles and sores.

Would he let me care for him in wrinkles and sores, when the skin ‘round his eyes was as thin as a wedding veil and his body required foul-smelling unguents and poultices? Would he let me touch him so, at all, when the hair on his head was grey and mine was greyer? One spotted veiny hand cradled in another?

I did not know.

Though his prick grew long and hard from my caress and his grey eyes darkened like storm clouds, the rest of him lay perfectly still.

“Your control is remarkable.”

“Indeed, as you’ve seen fit to remark upon it. Watson…”

Beneath my towel, his fingertips brushed my thigh like the quivering wings of captive butterfly.


	10. Frigging (Rating: Mature)

I turned on my side to face Holmes as he inched closer.

His fluttering hand did not reach for mine—or my cock—but rather quickly slid beneath towel and robe, burrowing, then filling an oily tunnel between my thighs.

“Watson?”

My gaze flitted to the screen.

“We are as safe here as we are anywhere,” he said, answering my unspoken question and voicing his own. “May I…?”

“I desire to serve,” I said. “Though most would consider it folly to aid and abet one’s own downfall—and possible imprisonment.”

“There is little about this debate, or this act, that society would _not_ consider folly.”

“Very true.”

“But that’s never deterred us before.”

I chuckled. “Also true.”

He raised one knee, which resulted in the arch of his foot brushing my lower leg; a gesture of such profound intimacy, the memory of it remains with me still.

Then Holmes began to thrust slowly between my thighs, which I clamped as tightly as strength and circumstance permitted.

“This is the only position which would achieve my aim without taking liberties or presuming.”

I found myself hardening at the discarded possibilities, and reminded myself to pursue the matter of ‘presumption’ at a more opportune moment.

And then Holmes came, without a noise, without a jerk, without so much as an uneven breath.


	11. Ghastly

“And so, Watson, we return to the fate of ‘ghastly.’”

I struggled to keep pace with Holmes’s long, quick strides on the return walk to Baker Street.

Upon finding his release, Holmes had flopped upon his back with a heavy sigh, smoked half a cigarette, then announced his imminent departure from said establishment.

I followed mutely in his wake. Soon we were dressed and on our way home.

“’Ghastly’ cannot stand,” I said. Holmes’s prick, like the rest of him, was agreeable, that is, _most_ agreeable, but our abrupt flight along with his decided lack of interest in any reciprocal caress gave me the impression that I had seen and felt the last of it. “The descriptors have fallen. I concede defeat on all counts,” I added sorrowfully.

“Ha! Opinion. Size. Age. Shape. Colour. Origin. Material. Purpose,” he said, swiveling his walking stick with a fencer’s flourish, “All vanquished.”

Ah.

Just a bit of sport.

We finished the journey in silence.

* * *

“We never did decide on the terms,” I said as we mounted the stairs to the sitting room. “Name your prize, victor.”

“Oh, the game is for the game’s sake, isn’t it? A matter of pride, but,” he turned, “I wouldn’t refuse an invitation to an early supper at Simpson’s and perhaps a glass from one of their finer bottles.”


	12. Wrong, wrong, and wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 221b x 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end. Thanks to everybody who's taken this little journey with me.

“I was wrong, Watson.”

I started.

Holmes had chosen a curious phrase to break what might be considered companionable silence, if one companion was pining wordlessly for the other, with sentiment stamped ‘return to sender,’ over a sumptuous victory feast.

“To not opt for the trout?” I asked with feigned nonchalance before cramming my mouth full of savory fish. I followed that astounding performance with chewing and humming to reinforce the forced levity.

“No, my hands were tied: the duck was on offer.” His jocularity matched mine, then his voice softened. “I was wrong to lie to you earlier. I said I played the game for the game’s sake.”

Now, I don’t know if any of my esteemed readers have ever had a moment in their lives when they both longed, with every fibre of their beings, and dreaded, with every nerve primed to fraying, what might happen next, but such was my pitiful case.

The lump of fish finally made its way down my gullet.

“It is not much of a gentleman who goads his friend,” Holmes pronounced the word very carefully, “into a false intimacy for want of a genuine one.”

“We have an intimacy, Holmes.”

“But I should, that is, if you also, but—I am so much more articulate in your stories. This is a frightful business.”

* * *

“Is it wise to look at me as you do?”

Our corner of the restaurant was as secluded as our corner of the bath had been, but Holmes’s frank gaze, of love and longing, yet so easily read, shook me.

“I claim superior perception and intelligence, not wisdom, Watson.”

“I was wrong, too,” I said quickly before he could retreat behind a wall of impassivity. “You have a most agreeable…”

The light in those grey eyes turned sharp and mischievous; a smile tugged at his lips.

“Really, Watson? Most agreeable?”

“All right, gorgeous, long…”

He hummed and bid me continue with a wave of his fork.

“...prime-of-life…,” I said.

“Quite fit,” he agreed and tucked into the duck with gusto.

“…trunk-like? Or would you prefer ‘rootish’?”

“We can discuss the limitations of my botany later, my dear man.”

I laughed. “…pink….”

He smirked.

“Country-bred…”

“Absolutely!” he cried, with a bang of cutlery on the table.

I leaned forward and whispered, “…flesh-and-blood fucking prick, with which I should desire to become better acquainted.”

“Your vocabulary’s extraordinary, Watson, but is it wise to speak to me as you do?”

“I claim fluidity and floridity of expression, Holmes, not wisdom.”

I leaned back in my chair, so did he. Then we both turned our attention to our plates, like pugilists catching breath between bouts.

* * *

“You are, no doubt, a selfish lover, Watson,” said Holmes.

His smile, his tone, all of him, charmed.

“Clumsy. Graceless bordering on ridiculous,” he continued. “Flesh as decrepit as the spirit is guileless. Tedious. Soporific. Ah, well.”

The trout was forgotten as was the wine, the room, everything but the man before me and the silly game that we were playing to simply tell the other that he was loved and wanted and adored beyond reason and prudence.

“Those are heady descriptors to toss at a fellow, Holmes.”

“Are they?”

“Especially considering the state in which you left me earlier this afternoon.”

Even in the shadows, I noted his cheeks reddening.

“I was wrong then, Watson.”

“Yes, and you are wrong now, and you must allow me the time and proper court of appeal,” I smirked, “to fight these accusations. It may take a night…”

“Perhaps more than one,” he said with a theatrical sigh.

“A week.”

“A month. Two.”

“A lifetime.”

And there it was.

“A lifetime?” Holmes echoed.

“Yes.”

“Yes, well,” he swallowed, “if we must. I had thought to retire to a little cottage in Sussex. I should like to keep bees.”

“I should like to keep you.”

“Watson, the English language is remarkable…”

“Yes, since you are remarking upon it,” I teased.

“…so are you, my beloved.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
